Home Blog Northside Wanderings Mushrooms and fungi play an important role and are beautiful, too

Mushrooms and fungi play an important role and are beautiful, too

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Mushrooms and fungi play an important role and are beautiful, too
Artist Conk: perennial woody shelf-mushroom, grows on dead and dying trees, can live several decades

Photos by Kathlean Wolf
Northside News

The Old Warner Wood contains an astonishing variety of fungi living in and on trees, beneath the soil, consuming decaying leaves and dead wood, and occasionally fruiting into mushrooms. Master Naturalist Kathlean Wolf has begun a project to document the diversity of fungal life in the wood. As new research has begun to examine the vital role fungi play in maintaining healthy woodlands, it’s time to take a second look at these unique organisms.

Pheasantback: annual mushroom, breaks down dead trees and decaying matter, this one was over a foot in diameter
Ash Bolete: annual, grow in profusion and eat dead ash trees and others
Artist Conk: perennial woody shelf-mushroom, grows on dead and dying trees, can live several decades
Blue Cheese Polypore: annual, lives on dead trees and tree-roots, has a soapy taste (inedible), with pores that exude watery resin
Lacquered Polypore: parasitic on live trees, decomposes dead wood, used in Chinese medicine
Delicate Cup Fungus: annual, lives on decaying leaves and logs
Unknown: perennial, similar to trametes (Turkey Tail)
Crown-tipped Coral: annual, decomposes dead willow, aspen and maple trees
Shaggy Mane: an annual, grows on woodchips and rotten logs, is edible but can cause major liver damage in combination with alcohol
Fairy Cups: smaller than a dime, often overlooked; Lichen: a symbiotic organism made up of fungi and algae growing together; and moss, a primitive plant
Turkey Tail: a perennial, grows on dead limbs and logs, may have medicinal properties
Chicken of the Woods: a common edible